The changing face of SA education

An inclusive education system that embraces innovation, new technology, and Industry 4.0 is the key to the growth and flourishing of young people, says Flinders academic Dr Andrew Bills.

Dr Bills, a Lecturer in Educational Leadership and Management, says the skills and capabilities to thrive in the digital age will be needed by our youth as they continue to make their way through this “rapidly changing world”.

He recently took part in a recent Fearless Conversations event on innovative education and pedagogy, where he was joined by fellow academic Joss Rankin and Department for Education Chief Executive Professor Martin Westwell.

Dr Bills is a fearless critic of the South Australian Education Department’s McKinsey-inspired World Class education agenda which the Flinders academic says is based on a NAPLAN-centric measure of school quality.

The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is a series of tests undertaken by Australian students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9. The scores are then used to determine the quality of schools.

From left, Professor Martin Westwell, facilitator Sarah Walsh, Dr Andrew Bills and Joss Rankin. 

“If the quality of school and pedagogy is defined by NAPLAN centric measurement and growth and with principals tenured … based on NAPLAN growth, I would say that is a far cry from the kinds of innovation that we need as we are entering the fourth industrial revolution, the digital age, new technologies and growth and the kinds of skills and capabilities that young people are needing,” Dr Bills says. 

Prof Martin Westwell, former Chief Executive of the SACE Board, was appointed to the role at the Department of Education in April 2022 and says the education system is complex and needs to be both “tight and flexible”.

“To have that balance between the two and knowing where the boundaries are, can be quite tricky,” he says.

“What's our narrative right now, where are we, where do we want to be and what's our best chance of getting there as a system?

"Some things are non-negotiables for us; we want our students to have their learning entitlement, the things that you really can't leave school without developing.

“But then there's some flexibility on how that's enacted. So we want fidelity to the principles but the way in which those principles are enacted might be different … because our schools are in an enormous range of context with a range of students.”

Prof Westwell says educators should not be measuring student success by asking how well they are doing but instead “how the student is doing well”.

"We are not backing off the expectation of our students to be literate and numerate, to have social skills, interpersonal skills and ethical understanding," he says.

“There are other ways of being successful and we know that our students who go on to do vocational education are incredibly successful in that pathway in the same way that students who go on and do an academic pathway can be incredibly successful."

Dr Bills welcomes this "new narrative" and says the equity and excellence agenda presents new frontiers for Flinders research with the Department into school redesign and pedagogical innovation to uplift public education.

Innovation in the outdoors

Flinders academic Joss Rankin is of firm belief that outdoor learning was one of the solutions for keeping children safe at school during the COVID pandemic.

The Senior Lecturer in Physical and Outdoor Education says outdoor learning quickly became a solution for teaching during the pandemic and presented schools with a new way of learning.

“The requirements from government and recommendations around schooling were saying, ‘if you (can) teach some things outside, do it’. It was a piece of advice from a convenience standpoint rather than anything else,” he says.

“All of a sudden doing some things outside is appearing as potentially new for quite a lot of people.

“The changes we’ve made might address some of the problems that existed before the pandemic.”

The need to adapt and change to meet students' learning needs during challenging times is important, and outdoor learning presents an "incredible" opportunity.

However, we must broaden our understanding of outdoor education and know that it goes beyond typical kayaking, rock climbing and surfing activities.

"If we view it (outdoor education) as a pedagogical approach that’s when we start to make this broader understanding of what we are actually discussing - a way in which to explore learning," Joss says.